Navigate Search History with the Up/Down Arrow Keys

[ajaberi]

### Suggestion: Navigate Search History with the Up/Down Arrow Keys

In Everything, when the search box has focus, previously used searches can be accessed by clicking the small triangular drop-down button on the far right of the search box.

However, moving the mouse to that button and clicking it can be inconvenient, especially for users who primarily use the keyboard. Because of this, I often skip using the Search History altogether.

I suggest allowing the **Up and Down Arrow keys to navigate through the Search History when the search box has focus.**

The proposed behavior would be:

Up Arrow (↑) → move to the previous item in Search History
Down Arrow (↓) → move to the next item in Search History

Enter → select the highlighted search, put it into the search box, and execute the search.

This would allow the user to quickly find and execute a previous search entirely from the keyboard:

↑ / ↓ → Navigate Search History → Enter → Select and execute the search**

One important detail is that when the **Search Box has focus**, the Up and Down Arrow keys should navigate the **Search History**, not the result list.

The current result-list navigation should remain unchanged when the **Result List has focus**:

Search Box focused**
`↑ / ↓ → Navigate Search History`
`Enter → Select and execute the highlighted search`

Result List focused**
`↑ / ↓ → Navigate Search Results`

This would be a small change, but it would make Search History much faster and more accessible for keyboard-oriented users, while preserving the existing result-list navigation behavior.

[horst.epp]

For me, I can already use the up/down arrow keys in the search history
after clicking the history button.

______________________________________________________
Windows 11 Home Version 25H2 (OS Build 26200.8973)
Everything 1.5.0.1419b (x64), Everything Toolbar 3.1

[void]

Up and down will default to focusing the result list.

Please use Alt + Up / Alt + Down to navigate through search history.

ENTER while in search history will set the search to the selected text and keep focus on the search box.



To set Up / Down from the search box to navigate through search history:

• In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
• Click the Keyboard tab on the left.
• To the right of Show commands containing, search for:
  history
• Select: Search Edit | Show All Search History
• Click Add.
• Press Up and click OK.
• Click Add.
• Press Down and click OK.
• Click OK.

[ajaberi]

That's great, thank you so much.

[ajaberi]

- It would be great if search history remembered the filters that were set for each search. More often than not, users need the history items with the exact same filters that were applied earlier.

- Search history really should preserve the filters used for each query. In a lot of cases, the entries in the history are needed with the same filters that were already in place.

- It would be a big improvement if the search history saved the filters applied to each search. Very often, people need the history items with the same filters that had been set before.

[void]

I will consider saving filters with search history.
Thank you for the suggestion.

For now, if you are repeating common searches, please consider bookmarks.
Bookmarks can remember the active filter.